set up. The bishop of Meaux, forced to choose between the fire and recantation, accepted the easier path; but notwithstanding the leader ' s fall, his flock remained steadfast. Many witnessed for the truth amid the flames. By their courage and fidelity at the stake, these humble Christians spoke to thousands who in days of peace had never heard their testimony.
It was not alone the humble and the poor that amid suffering and scorn dared to bear witness for Christ. In the lordly halls of the castle and the palace there were kingly souls by whom truth was valued above wealth or rank or even life. Kingly armor concealed a loftier and more steadfast spirit than did the bishop ' s robe and miter. Louis de Berquin was of noble birth. A brave and courtly knight, he was devoted to study, polished in manners, and of blameless morals. " He was," says a writer, " a great follower of the papistical constitutions, and a great hearer of masses and sermons;... and he crowned all his other virtues by holding Lutheranism in special abhorrence." But, like so many others, providentially guided to the Bible, he was amazed to find there, " not the doctrines of Rome, but the doctrines of Luther."--Wylie, b. 13, ch. 9. Henceforth he gave himself with entire devotion to the cause of the gospel.
" The most learned of the nobles of France," his genius and eloquence, his indomitable courage and heroic zeal, and his influence at court,--for he was a favorite with the king,-- caused him to be regarded by many as one destined to be the Reformer of his country. Said Beza: " Berquin would have been a second Luther, had he found in Francis I a second elector." " He is worse than Luther," cried the papists.-- Ibid., b. 13, ch. 9. More dreaded he was indeed by the Romanists of France. They thrust him into prison as a heretic, but he was set at liberty by the king. For years the struggle continued. Francis, wavering between Rome and the Reformation, alternately tolerated and restrained the fierce zeal of the monks. Berquin was three times imprisoned by the papal authorities, only to be released by the monarch, who, in admiration of his genius and his nobility of character, refused to sacrifice him to the malice of the hierarchy.
Berquin was repeatedly warned of the danger that threatened him in France, and urged to follow the steps of those who had found safety in voluntary exile. The timid and timeserving Erasmus, who with all the splendor of his scholarship failed of that moral greatness which holds life and honor subservient to truth, wrote to Berquin: " Ask to be sent as ambassador to some foreign country; go and travel in Germany. You know Beda and such as he--he is a thousand-headed monster, darting venom on every side. Your enemies are named legion. Were your cause better than that of Jesus Christ, they will not let you go till they have miserably destroyed you. Do not trust too much to the king ' s protection. At all events, do not compromise me with the faculty of theology."-- Ibid., b. 13, ch. 9.
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